Kristen Stewart’s labels

Here’s Kristen Stewart’s Vanity Fair spread by the ever-unimaginative Mario Testino. Are we ever going to be over him? Mario Testino is the Jay Leno of photographers.

Chill Twi-Hards. I’m not saying she’s not beautiful. She is always beautiful, and if you could read properly I wouldn’t have to repeat this so many times. In person even more so. Am so jetlagged in my head I can’t remember if I wrote about interviewing her for Snow White And The Huntsman?

Hate having to point this out all the time like it’s an actual accomplishment but this is the game, you know, because so often they’re allowed to behave unpleasantly and on those occasions when they observe the expectations of regular folk and civilians, it then becomes a surprise.

Junkets are only as efficient as the talent. If, for example, Jennifer Lopez stars in the movie, you can expect that your block times will be way off and you shouldn’t make plans until 3 hours after you were supposed to end your day.

Kristen Stewart was supposed to start at 11am that day. By 10:45am she came out of the trailer and walked, without anyone holding her hand, and without 10 bodyguards hovering around her to the interview area. I was (selfishly) very relieved. Because we were in England and so tired from our flights and I was hoping to fit in a nap and a run but only if my sessions ended on schedule at 1pm. Stewart was in her seat for a touch-up and her interviews started promptly on time. Like to the minute. How much you want to bet that when it comes time for Lindsay Lohan to start promoting her TV MOVIE she’ll be at least 2 hours behind for her appearances? This is why Lindsay Lohan isn’t seeing every script the way Kristen Stewart is.

So it was my turn to talk to her and, um, a few minutes before I’d just had a cigarette. Smokers understand other smokers. When I sat down next to her she was fidgety. But not in that Kristen Stewart lip-bitey fidgety way that people always criticise her for. I know this because I could recognise it, her craving. Later on someone mentioned that she’d recently quit smoking. I can imagine what that was about then. I hope she’s more successful than I am.

Stewart is very nice and thoughtful, makes eye contact just enough without it being weird (Jeremy Renner), and really enjoyed talking about being able to wear pants in the movie. The team around her (she had two publicists, personal makeup and hair) doesn’t hover around her constantly like they need to monitor her responses and her security team, though present, wasn’t on top of her the way I’ve seen others managed. In fact, I think they were in the trailer the entire day. By all accounts, she was pleasant and professional the whole time with everyone else and the entire operation went smoothly without any drama.

The drama that follows her then, well, no surprise, most of it is manufactured by those crazy ass fans. She looked sad when she landed at LAX. That means she and Robert Pattinson broke up. She was too happy without him at the Movie Awards. That means she’s a cheater or a lesbian and/or both. In the past she was less articulate about describing the fan affect on her life. In Vanity Fair she’s now arrived at a more diplomatic description:

“It’s not the fans that are scary. Each one of them is different. But large groups of people are scary—there’s no individual there. It feels like it’s just an enormous body of water, like a wave that’s stronger than you. And it’s loud like water, so it is all-encompassing. You’d have to be a sociopath not to be penetrated by the human energy that’s, like, cumulatively being hurled at you from every direction.”

Many of the advance excerpts that have been released from the issue focus on the labels that have been placed on her based on pictures. She claims not to give a sh-t. Mostly I believe her. Kristen Stewart isn’t, say, Ashley Greene. She’ll work, a lot, without having to call the paps or date a Jonas. But at the same time, no matter how much I like her, let’s not forget, she is an Actor. And in that sense she’ll always have something in common with Ashley Greene. Actors spend a lot of time thinking about themselves. Guess which part I’m highlighting:

“You can Google my name and one of the first things that comes up is images of me sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe with my ex-boyfriend and my dog. It was [taken] the day the movie came out. I was no one. I was a kid. I had just turned 18. In [the tabloids] the next day it was like I was a delinquent slimy idiot, whereas I’m kind of a weirdo, creative Valley Girl who smokes pot. Big deal. But that changed my daily life instantly. I didn’t go out in my underwear anymore.”

Even Kristen Stewart, who doesn’t give a sh-t, couldn’t resist the opportunity to label herself:

“I’m kind of a weird, creative Valley Girl who smokes pot.”

Which is kind of like when a hipster says he’s “counter-culture and non-conformist, prioritising independence over socio-economic restraints dictated to us by cultural zombies”.

Can one walk around being weird and creative? Do the truly weird and creative consciously call themselves weird and creative? Do you qualify as weird and creative if you self-identify as such?

In a way it’s actually endearing to hear it from her. To hear from her that she is what she is:

22 years old.

What 22 year old doesn’t obsess about WHO she is and what box to avoid, thereby ultimately ending up in another box full of people who don’t think they belong in boxes? When that 22 year old is an actor, well, then it's just because another way of describing who she thinks she should be playing in her real life. In a few years still, when she outgrows it, what may remain is the Kristen Stewart who doesn’t have to overthink...anything. The one who can be adorable about meeting Karl Lagerfeld, calling it an important moment in her life without any irony. The girl who is excited about the couture and how it fits her. A girl who can just answer without filtering her response through several layers of what she DOESN’T want to be before she can arrive at the version of herself she thinks she wants to live with. There are many of them who don’t get there. Kristen Stewart, I think she will.

Click here to watch the video from the shoot. Click here to read more excerpts from the article and see more photos.